A Virgin to Redeem the Billionaire, page 9
The ragged edge of his breath matched hers. Moans emanated from her throat without conscious thought. She stroked from the silk of his hair down the damp hollow of his spine and traced the line between his buttocks.
As if it was a signal, he began to thrust in earnest. It was incredible. She lost herself to the magnificence of thorough lovemaking.
This had been worth waiting for. He had. As her tension grew, she hugged him tight with everything in her, all of her so hot, she was scorching, but she reveled in the inferno. The intensity became nearly more than she could bear. The prick of her nails turned to scrapes as she tried to bring him deeper. Harder. More.
Her body arched beneath his, meeting his thrusts and clinging as he left. She turned her mouth against his shoulder and her teeth bit down, fighting the culmination because she wanted this to go on forever, but needed release so badly.
“Let go. Let me feel it,” he ground out. “Now.”
She couldn’t have held back one millisecond longer. The wave of orgasm swept her up and crashed through her, catching her in a paroxysm that wrenched exquisitely, even as it held her on that plain of abject pleasure, pulling him in with her at the same time.
He ground himself hard against her, hips firm to hers, his climax tearing a shout of triumph from him. He pulsed within her while the rest of him shuddered and their combined rippling waves of pleasure held her in thrall. She had never felt closer to another person in her life.
* * *
As the fog of lust receded, Kaine became aware that Gisella was panting beneath him. Trembles were still working their way through her. He had an urge to tuck her close and soothe her.
The strength of his own climax had nearly killed him. It must have scared the hell out of her.
Seeing as she’d been a virgin.
Really? That was why she’d been sending mixed messages?
He’d been stunned when she’d flinched as he had thrust into her with confidence, certain she was more than ready for him. He had never hurt a woman in his life, not physically and definitely not in such an intimate way. It hadn’t occurred to him she might be new to this, not the way she was responding to him.
It’s normal, she had said, and he’d realized what she meant.
He would have withdrawn at that point, but he’d been aroused beyond rational thought. She had practically begged him to finish the job, and the uncomfortable truth was, he might have resorted to pleading if she hadn’t. He might have given her anything she demanded—which is what he had thought she was planning when she had had that moment of apprehension.
She’d wanted to continue, though, and aside from ensuring she was with him every step of the way, he hadn’t thought of a damned thing except how good she felt. He’d been immersed in a kind of ecstasy he hadn’t known was possible. It was all the sweeter because, for those timeless moments, he had believed the only trade-off was that they were two people who were perfectly matched, giving each other exactly what they were getting—sexual gratification.
Coming down off that, however, his ingrained suspicions returned.
Why had she given him her virginity? There was no way she would give that up freely to a man she barely knew. Not without trying to obligate him after the fact.
He didn’t know which was more acute—his disappointment in her, for her trickery, or his disgust with himself, for letting down his guard and allowing it to happen. He was such a chump.
He withdrew as gently as he could, noting a stain of red on the condom. He rolled for a tissue and discarded it in the waste bin off that side of the bed. Then he stayed on his back and stared at the ceiling.
“What do you want, Gisella?” His tone was rough, his throat still raw from his shout of conquest when he’d lost himself in culmination. It had been worth nearly anything except this pall of self-contempt.
He turned his head in time to catch her flinch. She blinked her eyes open to reveal shadows of hurt dimming her dreamy meadow-green irises. “What do you mean?”
“You were a virgin.”
“Is that an accusation?” She dropped her hand off the side of the bed and dragged at the bedspread until she’d drawn the edge across her middle. “We all start out that way, in case you weren’t aware. So what?”
He snorted. “You’re giving yours away to me? For free?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“It’s impossible to believe. What are you planning to ask me for? The earring?”
“No! Nothing.”
“Right,” he disparaged tiredly. “You wanted to put me in a position of feeling obliged. But I don’t feel duty-bound to offer you the earring or leniency toward your cousin—”
“Shut up.” She tried to sit up, but the fold in the blanket and the fact he was lying on the other side of it hindered her. She settled for bracing on an elbow beside him, quilted bedspread twisted across her hips and hugged to her breasts. “This has nothing to do with Benny or the earring. I wanted to m—” She glared at him as though he was the one doing something wrong.
“Marry me?” he guessed with abject disbelief.
“Make love,” she corrected, gaze dropping while her brows remained tortured with self-consciousness.
The phrase cut through him like a scythe. “Either way, that’s not where we’re going. I lost my shirt to a woman once. It’s never going to happen again.”
“Did I ask you for marriage and a baby carriage? No. But is a shred of warmth too much to ask? You know what I want? To get out of this bed without further humiliation! Turn around.”
“Don’t be shy on my account. I’m intimately acquainted.”
She threw off the blanket and rose to stand over the bed like a Valkyrie, hair practically crackling. “You know what I wanted when we came in here? A nice experience. I thought we were giving each other pleasure. You don’t have to say you love me, but you could act like you like me. You could say you enjoyed it. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for my first time. Thanks for ruining it by being a suspicious jerk.”
She started for the door.
“Gisella,” he ground out, not even sure why he was calling her back. Maybe because he’d seen that disillusioned look on a face once before, in a mirror, after he’d realized how badly he had misplaced his own trust. It sickened him to be on the receiving end of it.
“Go to hell.” She walked out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
KAINE PRIDED HIMSELF on being a generous lover. Perhaps it was motivated by a desire to stay ahead and not owe his partner anything, especially satisfaction, but he had been on the wrong side of charity and, worse, selfishness. If he liked to have the upper hand and use it to keep a firm grasp of power, it was because he never again wanted to feel powerless.
But he felt utterly helpless as she exited. He’d let his ingrained distrust turn her first time into a disappointment. He might not be a romantic, but even his cynical soul believed such a thing ought to be a little bit special. Maybe not perfect. His had been awkward as hell, but he looked back on his sexual initiation with sheepish fondness, not bitter disappointment. It galled him even more that he’d tarnished what had been a singular experience for him.
He couldn’t leave things like this. He stood and yanked on his pants, following as far as the lounge. In her bedroom, he heard drawers slamming. Packing, most likely, mere hours after she had unpacked in there.
A jagged sensation in his chest tore at his heart. How would he get her to stay? Threaten her family again? Somehow, in trying to maintain the upper hand, he was left feeling as though he’d crawled out of the sewer. With his lungs aching, he searched his blank mind for some way to come back from his behavior. To make up with her.
Into the silence, her phone rang. She had dropped it on the floor between the sofa and the door. Her dress and underwear were discarded next to it, reminding him starkly of how perfectly they’d been attuned to one another less than an hour ago.
The phone read “Unknown” but the sequence of numbers was obviously intercontinental. He picked it up on reflex and slid to answer. “Hello?”
A woman’s voice choked, “Oh, God. I dialed the wrong number. I’m so sorry.”
“Wait. Are you looking for Gisella? Is this Rozi?”
“Yes,” she said in a distressed whimper. “Who’s this?”
“I’ll get her.”
* * *
She hated him. Hated him. Mean, small, awful man.
With shaking hands, she pulled on her robe, then packed. What would he do if she left? Go after her family? Accuse her of trying to trade her virginity for her freedom from this fake, dead-end facade of a relationship?
Hopelessness overwhelmed her and the tears she’d been fighting burned hotter, blurring her vision.
How had she gotten so tangled up with such a cynical bastard? She wasn’t one of those foolish women who thought they could change a man. She knew she couldn’t find his heart and make it grow three sizes. He had promised her nothing and delivered nothing. Why was she so devastated?
Because she had crawled into his bed offering more than her virginity. She had been willing to offer her heart. Damned near everything within her, if she was honest, and he had rebuffed all of it. Her whole being felt turned inside out.
She moved into the bathroom to wash off her makeup, then continued splashing the cool water on her face, trying to dilute the salty shame burning her eyelids.
“Gisella.” He knocked and entered wearing only his pants.
She said something she said only to men who tried to grope her on the subway.
He didn’t flinch, only held out her phone. “It’s your cousin. It was ringing when I went into the lounge.”
“Which one?” She straightened and swiped a hand towel across her face, then took the phone. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” Rozi said in a choked voice. She was crying. “I’ve been arrested.”
“What?” Gisella felt the impact of the edge of the sink against her hip as she slumped against it in shock. “For what?”
“They think I stole Viktor’s earring.”
“Oh, my God.” Their promise to do whatever it took to get the earrings came back to Gisella, making her spit out a disbelieving, “You didn’t, did you?”
“Of course not!” Rozi was trying to catch her breath between her fear-laced sobs. “I w-w-was there last night and this morning it was g-g-gone. But it w-w-wasn’t me. I need a law-lawyer. Can you—?”
“Of course. Yes. Calm down. Let me get a pen and paper. I’ll look after everything.” Her heart pounded as she hurried past Kaine into the bedroom.
He had to be able to hear Rozi as clearly as she could. She didn’t look at him, not wanting to see his contemptuous expression indicting her cousin as a thief in jail where he no doubt believed they all belonged.
He left the bedroom as she dumped her purse and scrabbled for a pen, but surprised her by meeting her in the lounge with a pad of paper.
She knelt at the coffee table, saying, “Is there a policeman I can talk to? I need him to tell me how this works.”
Her grandmother had insisted they all speak Hungarian growing up. There was no language barrier as Gisella was efficiently schooled on the steps she needed to follow to have her cousin released. When he put her back on with Rozi, Gisella did her best to reassure her near-hysterical cousin.
“I’m going to make some calls and send a lawyer to bail you out. Then I’ll book a flight,” she promised. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“We can leave in four hours,” Kaine said above her. He was holding his own phone and took a photo of the notes she’d made.
“What?” She’d lost track of him in the time she’d been talking to the police.
“The flight is ten hours. Tell her you should be there before she has to spend the night.”
Rather than argue with him, she repeated it to Rozi. Anything to calm her.
“Can you tell Mom and Dad?” Rozi choked. “I only get one call.”
“Of course. I’m going to take care of all of this,” Gisella promised, even though she had never once bailed a person out of jail, especially in a foreign country. Once the family banded together, however, mountains could be moved.
“They’re telling me to wrap up. I’m so sorry, Gizi. Uncle Ben didn’t answer and—”
“Don’t apologize. I love you. I’ll do anything for you. You know that. I’ll see you soon. I promise.” She hung up and shakily called her mother.
“Alisz Barsi,” she answered in a sleepy voice.
“Sorry to wake you, Mom, but Aunt Agotha will need you.” Gisella rose to pace restlessly, explaining about Rozi. “I’m going to look up some lawyer numbers in Budapest—”
“My lawyer is already making calls,” Kaine said, following to stand in the doorway of her bedroom, once again causing her to stare at him dumbly. “He should have someone at the station within a few hours.”
Her mother said something and Gisella dragged her attention back to the call, paraphrasing what Kaine had said.
“No, I don’t know how much,” she replied to her mother’s question. “But I’ll let you know where to wire it as soon as I do. Tell Aunty I’m flying over and she shouldn’t worry.” As if. Rozi’s mother had received all the emotions that Gisella’s mother hadn’t. She would be hysterical, which was why Rozi had tried their uncle first, then Gisella. She probably would have tried Gisella’s mother next, rather than her own.
Gisella ended the call and set the phone on the dresser top. She was shaking. The seriousness was beginning to impact her, but she pushed it to the edges of her consciousness.
“For all my mother’s faults, she’s a rock in a crisis,” she remarked, maybe just to reassure herself. She always tried to emulate her mother in that regard. She looked into the drawer of clothes, but couldn’t remember what she was doing.
Kaine picked up an accent throw off the foot of the bed and came to wrap it around her shoulders. “You’re in shock. Sit down before you fall down.” He tried to ease her toward the bed.
“I can’t.” She tried to brush the blanket off. “I’ll fall apart. I need to pack.”
He firmed his hold around her. “It’s the middle of the night and there’s nothing we can do for the next four hours. Sit for a minute.” He dragged her into his lap as he lowered to the edge of the bed. His strong arms gathered her in, warm and reassuring.
She resisted, mind still in Budapest, where her cousin was being led back to a cell. “I have to do something. Rozi needs me.”
“Shh, it’s okay.” He settled her closer.
“No, it’s not! She’s in jail.” She clenched her eyes tight, but a tear squeezed out. “I’m really scared for her. She wouldn’t steal. Whatever you think of me—”
“Shh, listen. This is important,” he said against her hair, arms like iron, forcing her to stay exactly where she was. “She’ll be okay.” He sounded so sure, she couldn’t help taking heart. “You said she’s resilient? That people underestimate her? That’s good. It’s the ones who go in acting like they have something to prove that get into trouble. You, I would worry about. You don’t know when to back down, but she grew up with siblings, didn’t she? Is she the oldest?”
She had a feeling he was making her talk for the sake of it. To distract her. “Middle. One older brother, and a younger brother and sister.”
“I bet she’s one of the great mediators of the world.”
“She is.” Any family disagreement, especially among the cousins, had Rozi stepping up first to smooth it over.
Gisella clenched her fist where it sat against his chest, sniffing because he was being really, really nice right now. Why?
“Tell me more about her,” he said in that soothing voice.
“She’s sensitive. Intuitive. Kind.” Her composure was beginning to crack under the pressures seemingly coming from all sides. “She’s my best friend. I’d do anything for her. We always thought we’d go to Hungary together, but I wanted to see you again.” She felt so guilty about that now. She hung her head against his chest. “And we made this stupid promise to each other years ago, after my parents divorced. We swore we wouldn’t have sex until we were in love, and I was in bed with you while she was being arrested—”
“Shh.” His hands smoothed across her back, drawing her in as she broke down and began to cry in earnest.
Her tears weren’t all for her cousin, though. They were for the mess she was in with him. The lovemaking and the arguing and the hurt he’d delivered by acting so mistrustful, then taking care of things so swiftly in her time of crisis. It was horribly confusing to hate him and feel grateful at the same time.
“Why are you being so nice?”
He drew a breath, but his chest stayed expanded and firm under her wet cheek, prolonging the silence.
“Because of earlier? Damn you, Kaine!” She knocked her fist against his chest. “You don’t owe me anything.”
His breath eased out in a pained sigh that hurt her all the more.
She would have dragged herself off his lap, but he held her and rocked her.
“Be calm, Gisella,” he insisted, making crooning noises until she lay limp with exhaustion in his arms. He petted her hair and soothed her back and she started to relax into sleep, then jerked awake with a gasp of alarm.
“It’s okay,” he murmured, his voice more rumble beneath her ear than a voice she heard externally. “I’ll wake you when it’s time to go. But get some rest or you’ll be no use to her.”
“I can’t,” she wailed softly, but sleep dragged at her. The last few days had been far too much to cope with. She was emotionally drained, physically exhausted and her mind wanted to escape from all of it. She slipped into sleep cradled in his arms.
